


Befores and Afters

by starry19



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 11:40:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14768901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starry19/pseuds/starry19
Summary: "For the second time in his life, events were divided into Before and After. Before, she hadn’t been his. After…she was."





	Befores and Afters

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes my brain creates stories while I sleep, and this is one of those fics.

The first time with Lucy was in darkness, the second time in the pure light of a just broken dawn. 

At night, both of them half-hidden in the shadows, it had been urgent and desperate and he had felt terrifyingly vulnerable as she wrapped herself around him. 

And in the day, it had been tender and slow and full of hope and possibilities. 

A mere six hours between the two, and yet, it may as well have been a lifetime. It certainly felt like one. For the second time in his life, events were divided into Before and After. 

Before, she hadn’t been his.

After…she was. 

He still wasn’t entirely certain how it could have happened. True, she’d been in his arms a handful of times, had even slept against him, dark eyelashes standing out like pen strokes against her ivory skin. But he had deliberately talked himself out of any real meaning behind these things. 

He was a placeholder. Someone to lean on until the man she really wanted was free again. 

But then he abruptly was, and he had braced himself for the coming crash of pain that attended such things as the entire world dissolving. 

The crash never came. 

Instead, when some of the focused chaos that had overtaken them had receded, when he was happy to have Rufus back, but perfectly afraid he was going to lose her before he’d ever had her, she’d sat next to him one evening, their shoulders touching, and he began to feel a faint thread of hope. 

It had grown the next day, when she’d grinned widely at him, and even more the next, when he’d seen Wyatt without a wedding ring, and yet, Lucy still barged her way into his room without knocking. 

Two days later, she’d kissed him, after clearly working up the courage to do so. Even as he’d seen it coming, he’d been dumbstruck, frozen in place as she steadied herself against his shoulders. 

Was this happening? Did she want _him?_

He’d bowed his head over her later, face in her neck, mind turned off to everything except for how it felt to be in her arms. He needed better words. 

She was soft, warm, smelled incredible. Women always smelled good. It was some trick of nature.

Everything about her was petite. He figured he would be able to span her waist with his hands. Funny, she never seemed delicate when she was fighting. But it was now, in the quiet moments, when he realized anew how fragile she was. 

He brushed a kiss against her jaw, her temple. Hoped he wasn’t visibly trembling. 

Her fingers slid into his hair and he closed his eyes. 

She didn’t knock on his door that night, either. Instead, she’d appeared almost silently, a figment of his imagination, deftly pulling back the blankets and climbing on top of him, mouth hot and wet on his. 

His shirt hit the floor with a quiet whisper, her hands skating over his chest, his arms. Before he could marshal his thoughts enough to act, her oversized sweatshirt joined his in a heap. 

The first instant of skin on skin literally stole his breath. He wrapped his arms around her narrow back, smothering a groan into her shoulder.

It had been such a long time… 

Her skin was velvet under his lips, and he let his mouth wander, noting what made her gasp, what made her arch up, what made her muscles quiver. 

It crossed his mind that he should have stopped, should have asked her if she was sure. If there was any doubt…

But then he found himself undressed all the way, her hands seemingly everywhere, swearing in Croatian as she touched him. He flipped their positions, felt seams and stitches give way on the remainder of her clothing, felt how much she wanted him, felt how ready she was. 

From nowhere, he was visited by the conviction that if he wasn’t inside of her in the next ten seconds, he would die. 

It was madness then, and he found himself taking her almost roughly, her nails digging into his back, her legs wrapped around his waist. He muffled a curse into the side of her neck, or perhaps it was a prayer, biting his lip in a desperate attempt to prolong this. 

She rolled her hips impatiently beneath him, and he saw stars.

She reached up, pulled him in for a kiss, and he obliged, nipping at her bottom lip first, loving her sharp intake of breath. 

Every nerve was raw and exposed. Every place where they touched felt like it had been branded. 

In five minutes, it was all over. Lucy had shivered and clutched at him, inner muscles tightening in such a way that he’d had no choice but to follow her. He swore she’d said his name once, barely audible over the wild roar in his ears.

He was breathing like a dying man, collapsed against her chest, goosebumps rising wherever she dragged her fingertips. She kissed his forehead, pushed his damp hair away from his face. 

With an immense effort, he moved, Lucy’s head coming to rest in the crook of his arm, pulling the sheets up to her shoulders. Very gently, he kissed her. Before he’d even raised his head, he could feel her smiling. 

He smiled back, full of wonder, tracing the curve of her hip with his fingertips. 

While she slept, he stayed awake, committing every detail of this night, this woman to memory. He knew too well that life could change in a heartbeat, and wasn’t leaving anything to chance. God forbid there would come a time that he couldn’t remember the exact texture of her skin, the silk of her hair where it trailed across his chest, the rhythm of her breathing. 

Dawn arrived inexorably, a pale sheen of gray through the dirty plexiglass slats that passed for windows here. Lucy stirred against him, warm and sleepy, and he drew her closer. 

Gray light turned to pale pink, and her skin turned rosy. It was fascinating, and he pressed his lips to her shoulder, her neck, the swell of her breasts. 

She woke beneath him, arms linking around his neck, pulling him down. 

This time was marked by deep, lingering kisses and languid slowness that reminded him of lazy Sunday mornings or long winter nights.

She was inclined to be flirtatious after, propped up on one elbow against his chest, hair in a messy halo around her face. 

She looked well loved, he thought. And she was. In all senses. 

He was grateful that he saw no regret in her eyes, no hesitation as she stole kisses or trailed her fingers over his stomach. 

This was impossibly perfect. 

As the light shifted again, this time to soft gold, he held her closer, watching the progression of yellow beams stretch over the floor of his room. He didn’t want it to reach them, didn’t want the reminder that time was continuing on. For now, they existed in a bubble, the two of them, and he had the curious notion that as long as they were there, nothing could touch them. Not fear or death or uncertainty or…time. 

It was foolish, but he believed it nonetheless. 

When she eventually crawled out of bed, hunting for whatever remained of her wardrobe from the previous evening, he folded an arm behind his head, watching her unabashedly. Did she have any idea of how lovely she was? Had he told her? He rather thought he had, though his recollection was hazy. He had said a great many things last night, most of them in the heat of passion, and all of them true in the stark light of day as well. 

When she was properly covered again, her luminous skin hidden by denim and cotton once more, he tugged her back to bed. Kissed her soundly. Made a face when she pulled back. 

She laughed, traced his jawline. “Time for me to go do my walk of shame.” 

He arched an eyebrow. “And are you ashamed?” he asked, lips turning up. He knew the answer. 

She grinned enormously. “Nope,” she said, sounding utterly certain. 

Then she was gone, and he was left with rumpled sheets and fingernail marks on his shoulders. He considered it an eminently fair trade. 

He stayed in bed for perhaps another thirty minutes, half of his brain spinning wildly, the other half utterly shut down. 

There were a few things they hadn’t discussed. Was he allowed to touch her in public? Or was this their secret? Not that anyone could keep secrets of this nature for long while living cheek by jowl in a metal box. 

For his part, he would have been happy to put an announcement in the paper. In large letters. But he rather suspected she wanted to keep this quiet. He knew part of it was her reluctance to hurt Wyatt with the knowledge, something he found deeply ironic considering the other man’s behavior for the past six weeks. 

He also found it deeply annoying. 

That was Lucy, however, and he would give in to her wishes with whatever grace he could muster. It would probably not be very much. 

An hour later, showered and dressed, muscles protesting a bit at the unexpected ways he had been using them recently, he made his way to the kitchen. 

Rufus and Jiya were already there, the two of them still looking in awe of each other. It made him smile. 

The coffee was hot and not nearly as strong as he liked it, but he’d long become accustomed to American preferences, where coffee flavored coffee was a rarity. 

Lucy appeared in another minute, and she smiled and blushed when she saw him. He thought she might as well have been wearing a sign that she had spent the night in his bed. 

Jiya caught the expression, raised a clever eyebrow at him, smirking a little, but said nothing. He gave her a look of wide-eyed innocence back, certain she would keep it to herself, at least for now. 

He turned, handing Lucy a coffee cup with a wink, brushing his fingers over hers before he sat down beside Rufus.

He had developed a decent working relationship with the other man, had actually been compelled to hug him when their insane mission to rescue him had worked, startling the hell out of Rufus, to put it mildly. 

The past few days had been devoted to figuring out what on earth their next steps could be. Everyone had agreed that they should avoid crossing their lifelines if at all possible. There was too much that could go wrong, too many unaccounted for variables. Plus, no one really wanted to come face to face with themselves. 

Wyatt and Lucy had already done so, and had been properly shellshocked for days. He couldn’t blame them for that. 

It had been shocking for him, too. 

They had said, the two future versions of the team, that they were from five years ahead in the timeline. But…the woman that looked at all of them with amusement and a little annoyance…that had not been the Lucy who had handed him a leather bound journal and put his life on a collision course with the impossible.

That was an unsettling thought. How many Lucys could be running around in the universe? One was quite enough for him to keep track of, thanks very much. 

The current Lucy, the one that was now indisputably his, sat across from him, hair pulled up and cheeks still a bit rosier than usual. As was per her normal routine, her cup appeared to consist of forty percent coffee and sixty percent creamer. Appalling, truly. 

The computer screens behind them suddenly turned on, numbers and coordinates flashing too fast to read. They all turned, eyes fixated, and the alarms begin to sound. 

Rittenhouse was on the move again, this time under Emma’s terrifying leadership. He had no doubt that she had plans, and the means to carry them out. He was also under no illusion that the orders to kill Lucy had been rescinded. In fact, he had a suspicion that _that_ particular mission had been moved to priority status. 

Briefly, he wondered what the odds were of convincing her to stay here. Dismal, he concluded. And they _did_ need her and her extraordinary mind. 

He needed to teach her how to shoot better. Needed to get her a gun of her own. A .22, maybe. No kickback, and it came in models small enough that she could slip it into whatever bag she happened to be carrying. 

He made a mental note to himself, downing the rest of his coffee. 

Wyatt, Mason, and Agent Christopher came running, Wyatt already casually tucking his sidearm into its holster.

No one really needed Lucy to explain the significance of October 16, 1962, at least not after she’d told them it was the first day of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

“Oh, boy,” Rufus deadpanned. “Yeah, no pressure on this one, right? Screw up and we come back to nuclear apocalypse.” 

“Look on the bright side,” he told the other man. “We’re already living in a bunker, so we’re good.” 

Everyone _looked_ at him, and he rolled his eyes. “You people need a sense of humor.” 

Ten minutes later, the four of them - Wyatt, Lucy, Rufus, and himself - were climbing the stairs to the waiting Lifeboat, Rufus ignoring anyone’s suggestion that he might not be ready for this. 

He had managed a moment alone with Lucy before, kissing her quietly, one hand cupping her face. “For luck,” he’d murmured with half a grin. 

She’d given him a small smile back, and he supposed he would make do with that. For now. 

The distinct whirring of the Lifeboat’s coils began, and he buckled himself in, eyeing Lucy’s harness to make sure it was secure. The door slid shut behind them, Rufus flipping switches. The whirring got louder, the shaking enough to rattle his teeth. 

Maybe, when they got back, he could sleep for twelve hours without interruption. Preferably with Lucy beneath his arm. Or, not sleep. He was willing to be flexible. 

She caught his eye and he winked at her again, wondering how much of what he was thinking was visible on his face. Apparently at little, and possibly more than that. 

“Here we go, folks,” Rufus commented. “Please keep your hands and feet inside the time machine until we come to a complete stop. Thank you for choosing Mason Industries.” 

He forced his mind back to the mission. There would be time for everything else later. 

First, they had to save the world. 

At least for one more day.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
